Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Genes Cannot Debunk Heidegger

It might be possible someday, using genetic engineering, to give a child a brain smart enough to understand why Heidegger is wrong, but there is no getting around the fact that he will have to undergo the experience of learning about Heidegger first. There are no genes for Heidegger debunking.

3 Comments:

I only ask that you do not use Francis Schaeffer's inaccurate analysis of Heidegger. For one, it is not the case that Heidegger's later thought dates from around his 70th birthday; actually, it is closer to his 40th birthday (The Francis Schaeffer Trilogy, 19). For second, Heidegger did not feel "the same need for authentication as Sartre" (Ibid) because Sartre got authenticity from Heidegger's Being and Time; Schaeffer gets this simple historical fact wrong. So already from the start Schaeffer makes two glaring mistakes in relation to Heidegger and it doesn't end there. I say this only because of your veneration of Schaffer's work and hope that your opinions in relation to Heidegger are based more on current scholarship than Schaeffer's outdated (and generally false) ideas.

I think the misunderstandings stem largely from Schaeffer's propensity to interpret Heidegger through Sartre and resting on the early scholarship on Heidegger which is seriously lacking in acumen and accuracy. Should you marshal arguments against Heidegger, what would be your sources?

I'm sure you are more informed about Heidegger than Schaeffer given the former's centrality to so-called "postmodernism" and your own proclaimed expertise on that issue. So, again, feel free to present your arguments and we will discuss.

It's beyond my understanding how someone as smart as Heidegger would take the long circuitous route (via philosophy) to end up with some mystical feelings one would readily have, provided one takes a few things upon faith. Heidegger is best left untouched.